Snow removal costs at SA adding up

Authored by Manda Arnold on Mar 12, 2014

South Adams maintenance director Dave Vorhees was present at Tuesday evening’s South Adams School Board meeting to update the board on the facility. According to Vorhees, cost for dealing with the snow, ice, and subzero temps this year have added up to approximately $26,000.
This includes wear on the equipment, labor, salt, and overtime costs. Broken down, six inches of snow costs the school $1,100 to deal with. According to Vorhees, it would have cost the school around $40,000 if they had had to bring someone in to remove all of the snow. Vorhees also informed the board that he had made a claim with emergency management for the costs to equipment. Vorhees stated that he could receive around 75 percent of that claim but has not received anything yet. He had to remove one item from his list of claims – the motor drive on one of the school plows needed replaced. But Vorhees could not claim it because he could claim it under the school’s insurance. The cost for the motor is $6,597.
Superintendent Scott Litwiller and the board thanked Vorhees, the maintenance crew, and Mark Cook for all of their hard work keeping the school plowed and dealing with all of the winter issues.
Athletic director Jason Arnold requested and was granted approval for a new athletic website. Arnold stated that he would be using Varsity News Network (VNN), which services many schools throughout the state. The new website will allow for a customized URL, individual team pages, promotion of standout athletes, updated schedules, photos, and required sport forms all available in one place. Arnold also stated that he hoped it would help streamline the communication process using the websites Twitter, Facebook, and newsletter capabilities.
Cost to the school would be a $900 start-up fee. Selling advertising spots on the website would also be an option to help offset costs. Arnold could not give the board exact figures on how much the school would receive in advertising dollars because what advertisers are charged is based off of the number of views to the website. The school will then receive a percentage of the profits back.
Advertising would be sold first to local businesses and then if there are any extra spots available, advertisers through VNN would be put up. Arnold did clarify that he would have the authority to tell VNN not to use certain advertisers if the school found it offensive, but he also stated that VNN recognizes that they service schools and keep their advertisers appropriate.
The website will work on a tier system. He would be at the top of the tier and would have the authority to allow a certain amount of access to certain pages. Coaches would have access to their pages to update schedules, put up game stats, or even write summaries of games. But all content would go directly to him to be approved before it could be published on the website.
School board member Landon Patterson asked about the possibility of putting the Berne Tri-Weekly News webcast schedule on the website. Arnold said that he had not spoken with Clint Anderson about it, but that it might be a possibility. He also talked about the possibility of putting a link on the school website to the actual webcast. But again stated that he had not spoken with Anderson and didn’t know how much of a possibility it would be. Arnold said that he hoped to have the website ready to go for next school year.